


Burning Daylight

by Celia_and



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Angst, Banter, Beaches, Bodyguard, Bodyguard Ben Solo, Eating, Elementary School, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, Gun Violence, Happy Ending, High Heels, Intimacy, Jealousy, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Minor Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Over-the-counter painkillers for headache, Pining, Politician Rey, Politics, Protective Ben Solo, Sassy Rey (Star Wars), Slow Burn, Smut, Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and
Summary: He doesn’t tell her much in general, which isn’t out of character for him, except that now he has things of significance to tell.I’m in love with you. I would give my life for you. It was probably inevitable, because you’re you, and I never stood a chance, really. I love you. I hope it isn’t an inconvenience.----------Twenty-five-year-old Rey is the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Ben’s job would be quite a bit easier if she would admit she needs a bodyguard.ON HOLD. See Chapter 4 end note.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 257
Kudos: 1078
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reylo_addict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylo_addict/gifts).



> Please mind the tags on this one! I haven’t decided the course of the rest of the story and how many chapters it will be, but there will be non-lethal gun violence of some kind, so if that’s a dealbreaker for you, please don’t read. Take care of yourselves. 💛

“We’re burning daylight here.”

It’s one of her go-tos. She says it all day long. It could be ten in the morning or ten at night, and any time she feels someone is wasting time that could be better spent on constituent services or researching best practices or relationship building, she trots it out.

“We’re burning daylight here.”

Ben would make an awful mayor compared to her. Rey just barely squeaked by in the primary, and he never forgets it. She doesn’t care. She fights just as hard for the interests of the people who didn’t vote for her as those who did. That’s how you make enemies in politics, he supposes: by trying to change things. He stands behind her in crowds and scans the sea of faces to try to discern who didn’t vote for her. He’s really just doing his job by hating them.

She would laugh at him if he told her. (He loves her laugh.) The danger is theoretical to her. Caution, risk mitigation, protection—that’s his territory. Hers is openness, optimism, opportunity. She wants to shake every hand in the crowd; he wants her to shake none. She sees the glass as half full. He sees it as half full too, but it’s probably poisoned.

She was sworn in the day after her twenty-fifth birthday. It was like the universe planned it so the city wouldn’t have to do without her for another four years. It squeaked her in right under the wire. So young, so female, so passionate. That’s how you make enemies too, he realizes: by existing in the world as a woman with the audacity to be beautiful but not quiet.

He’d like to tell her she can slow down, that she’s barely gotten started. She lives by some invisible clock that only she can see—one whose urgent ticks tell her that she’s missing opportunities, that there are people suffering, that she’s been in office for a hundred days and she hasn’t gotten the council to pass universal pre-K yet, that she’s letting people down, that she’s not nearly enough, so she needs to work twice as hard to even begin to approach what they deserve. She only lasts about thirty seconds in long-sleeved blouses before unbuttoning the cuffs and rolling them up to her forearms just below her elbows. He’s pretty sure it’s unconscious.

 _You have time,_ he longs to tell her.

“We’re burning daylight here.”

* * *

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“You do,” her chief of staff, Rose, retorts firmly.

Ben stands at attention in the corner and waits, trying not to look directly at her. Because it’s been a whole minute since he walked in the room, and he’d seen photos and video of her, of course, but none of it even came close to preparing him for the physical devastation of being in her presence. He feels like he’s been kicked in the chest. By someone wearing combat boots.

“It seems like a waste of tax dollars.”

“Rey, I promise you that organizing your funeral would be a much bigger expense. You’ve gotten two death threat letters this week, besides about a dozen with some poorly spelled but explicit sexual fantasies that I wish I could forcibly excise from my brain.”

Rey huffs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Rose tucks her hair behind her ear. “I ran the death threats by someone I know at Capitol Police. They didn’t think they were legitimate. But they advised upping your security anyway, and that means Mr. Solo here is about to become your shadow.”

He sees out of the corner of his eye when she crosses her arms. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

“This is _exactly_ what you signed up for. You knew all along you’d be more of a target than a sixty-seven-year-old man. I can check with his staff, but I’m pretty sure they got exactly zero letters detailing how the writer wanted to dress him up in a French maid’s outfit and—”

“Okay, that’s enough. I don’t need the details.”

Ben wonders if he could get ahold of those letters and track down the senders. The concept of castration suddenly has definite merits.

Rose leans forward, planting her hands on Rey’s desk. “What you need is to resign yourself to the fact that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I would let you put yourself in an ounce more danger than is absolutely necessary. So, Rey, meet Ben. He’s your new best friend.”

She stands up from behind her desk to come get a good look at him. He can’t avoid looking at her when she’s right in front of him like this, and he feels moderately light-headed by the full force of _her._ Her eyes rake him from head to toe, as if checking for some flaw that she can cite as a deal-breaker. She evidently finds none, so she frowns and purses her lips and jabs a pointed finger at him and tells him, “We are _not_ friends.”

It occurs to him later that it might say something about him: the fact that _that_ was the exact moment he fell in love.

* * *

“We’re burning daylight here.”

She doesn’t usually get to say it to him. He’s too attuned to her. He attains fluency in her body language after about a week of study. He knows when she’ll be ready to leave because of the way her right pinky starts to twitch with impatience, and he’s there at her elbow, pulling the door open before she can get to it.

It bothers her for months, he can tell: the fact that she can never say it to him. _We’re burning daylight here, Solo. Look alive. The people are waiting._

She says that too. “The people are waiting.” Sometimes she means it quite literally: the people in the next meeting on her jam-packed schedule. More often it’s people in the abstract: her six hundred eighty thousand constituents. That doesn’t make it less true. They _are_ waiting. Some are waiting for her to cajole the council into upping the Emergency Rental Assistance Program’s budget; some are waiting for her first blunder so they can pounce with ready criticism; some are waiting for her to accidentally leave one more button at the neck of her blouse undone. A few are probably waiting for her to die.

He hasn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since he met her. He’s like a brand-new parent, consumed with the anxiety of responsibility for a life he loves more than his own.

He’d never understood the impulse to kill before. He does now. He would murder for her. He would scorch the earth until he found those who would do her harm cowering in some hidden corner, and his face would be the last thing their eyes ever saw.

He doesn’t tell her that part. Especially about scorching the earth: she would probably object to his razing her beloved city. And to murdering her constituents, for that matter.

He doesn’t tell her much in general, which isn’t out of character for him, except that now he has things of significance to tell. _I’m in love with you. I would give my life for you. It was probably inevitable, because you’re you, and I never stood a chance, really. I love you. I hope it isn’t an inconvenience._

* * *

“You’re a large man,” she tells him one day, with a mouthful of sandwich and a smear of mayo at the corner. It could be a compliment coming from some, but from her it’s more like an accusation.

“You could say that.” He glances around the Corner Bakery for potential threats. It’s just the two of them at the table, since the superintendent had to cancel at the last minute.

“Good, ‘cause I just did.” She takes a forceful suck of iced tea through her metal straw that she’ll rinse off afterward and pack up in its slender pouch with orange and teal flowers and put back in its designated pocket in her bag. _(God,_ he loves her.) “How tall are you, anyway?”

“Six three.”

She knows he won’t eat on the clock, but she never stops trying to feed him anyway. She pours out half the contents of her chip bag onto a napkin and slides it across to him. “Eat these.”

“No, thank you.” A twenty-something white man in a baseball cap passes a little too close behind her, and Ben glares him away.

“How do you stay so big if you never eat during the day?”

“Intermittent fasting. I eat at night.”

“When do you work out?”

“At night.”

“When do you sleep?”

“At night.”

She hums and reaches across the table to steal back one of the chips she gave him. She pops it in her mouth and crunches loudly. “Your nights are busy.”

He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know what she wants him to say. She’s taken to doing this fake flirting that he doesn’t understand. He thinks it might be a way for her to pretend that her life isn’t in danger. So he isn’t her bodyguard, he’s just her platonic sexless boyfriend who happens to hang around all day.

“What are you like when you’re not working, Solo?”

“About the same.”

She licks her fingers and leans back in her chair to consider him. “I don’t believe that. You can’t be this...” She gestures haphazardly in his direction. “this... all the time.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am.”

“I’m going to fire you if you start up with that ma’am business again. I thought we were past that.”

“You can’t fire me, ma’am. You’re not my employer.”

“I’ll have Rose fire you, then. That way you could eat during the day. And work out. And wear something other than suits.”

He glances over his shoulders, surveying the area. “That isn’t necessary.”

“One day,” she threatens with a plastic knife, poised to slice into her chocolate baby bundt cake. “One day you’re going to let someone else take care of you.”

Her phone chimes an alert, and she picks it up and her thumbs fly, typing a response.

He watches her and thinks how perfectly she would fit in his arms and says it so quietly that she doesn’t hear: “That isn’t necessary.”

* * *

When he jerks off in the shower, with his head bent under the spray and one hand splayed on the wall in front of him, he thinks about how she would look tangled in blankets in his bed, with his blinds securely drawn against the world. Or drowsy and content and cocooned in bubbles in his bathtub. Or nestled in between his legs on his living room rug while he strokes her hair and feeds her blackberries.

His fist is practiced and efficient. The visions crumble as soon as his cock paints the tile, because he knows he’ll never be allowed to take care of her except during business hours.

But every night in the shower, he forgets all over again.

* * *

He hates crowds. He _hates_ crowds.

Sometimes they fight afterwards, or as close to fighting as they get.

“You need to let me do my job, Solo. You can’t clothesline everyone who tries to get a selfie.”

“Holding out an arm isn’t clotheslining, ma’am. And he had his hand in his pocket.”

“It couldn’t be because it’s _thirty degrees out,_ could it? And don’t call me ma’am.”

“It’s my job to assess potential—”

“—threats and act on them accordingly, I _know._ But you doing your job stops me from doing _my_ job, and mine is more important.”

“There’s nothing more important than my job, Rey.”

She crosses her arms and crinkles her brow and sulks in a mollified kind of way.

She only lets him get the last word when he calls her _Rey._ As a reward. He doesn’t do it too often; it’s dangerous.

* * *

Some nights when he drives her home she’s talkative. Some nights she’s busy reading and sending emails. The rarest of all are the nights when she leans her head back against the headrest and closes her eyes.

One night she falls asleep under the orange swoop of streetlights and doesn’t wake up, not even when he pulls up to her building and comes around the car to open her door. She snuffles in her sleep, with her phone still clutched in her hand.

He crouches down. “Ma’am.” Her nose twitches. “Rey.” Still she sleeps. Before he can think better of it, he skims the back of his index finger over her upper arm, just lightly. Her eyelids flutter open, and he draws his hand back as if burned.

She grunts sleepily and mumbles, “‘M tired.” Her hand fumbles for the seatbelt.

“I know.” He straightens up and scans the dark street for danger.

She stumbles a little getting out of the car, and he takes her arm to steady her.

“I can walk you upstairs.”

“I know.”

“If you moved to a building with an elevator, you wouldn’t have to walk up stairs in the middle of the night. Or better yet, a house.”

She rubs her eyes. At a certain point in the evening she forgets she’s wearing eye makeup, and tan and black smudges start to appear on her fingers and her cheeks.

“Let me walk you upstairs.” He has to try.

She looks up at him and smiles sleepily. “Nope.”

“Just tonight, Rey.”

She shakes her head. “You haven’t forgotten our deal, have you, Solo?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You get to hover all day, but not at night. And besides, if you came upstairs...” She trails off and looks down. “You shouldn’t come upstairs.” She straightens up and loops her bag over her shoulder. “We’re burning daylight here.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Solo.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay, so on Wednesday you’re making an appearance at the Health and Human Services luncheon. You’re double-booked with the delegation visiting from Seattle, so we’ll keep that short.”

Rose rules Rey’s schedule with an iron fist. This is how the staff starts every Monday morning: in Rey’s office with a preview of the week ahead. Rey always starts each new week like it’s a fresh chance to make a difference. Ben sits in the chair in the corner past the door, so he’s not in anyone’s way.

“On Friday, you have Brookewood Elementary in the morning—you’re visiting their science fair and presenting the award for the Mayor’s Essay Contest winner.”

Rey perks up at that. “Oh, who won?”

Finn, one of her staffers, speaks up. “A third grader. The prompt was what you would do if you were mayor for a day, and she wrote about organizing the community to start a fruit and vegetable garden in the park near her house where people who were hungry could come pick some.”

Rey visibly melts a little and puts her hand on her heart. “Oh, I love her. I want to hire her. Can we make that happen?”

Finn grins. “Unless you decide to do away with child labor laws between now and then...”

Rey cocks her head, narrows her eyes, and pretends to consider. “Maybe an internship?”

“Let’s focus, people!” Rose scolds. “You can’t start your elementary student internship program on Friday, because you also have the city manager in the afternoon, with a budget preview for next fiscal year. Apparently they have new revenue projections but haven’t sent me the specifics. I can’t tell if they’re just disorganized or it’s bad news. We’ll see on Friday.” She double-checks the week’s agenda to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. “Oh, and the symphony gala on Saturday.”

“Ugh.” Rey scrunches up her nose. “Can you get me out of that?”

“Absolutely not. You have to schmooze with potential donors.”

“I’m less than a year into my first term. Maybe I could hold off on the reelection fundraising for, I dunno, another few months?”

“Aww, honey,” Rose reaches across the desk to pat her hand. “You’re sweet. Oh! You should take a date.”

Ben stiffens in his chair.

“Okay, that’s it, meeting’s over!” Rey claps her hands definitively, and the rest of the staff troop out of her office. Only Rose and Ben stay.

“You really should take a date,” Rose insists. “I can set you up with that coworker of Paige’s.”

“I don’t like him.”

“The only thing you know about him is that he’s a coworker of Paige’s.”

“Yeah, he’s probably some obnoxious hotshot surgeon—”

“He’s a pediatric oncologist. Who carries around animal stickers in his pockets to stick on his patients’ hands.”

Rey melts a little for the second time in ten minutes, but this time for a much less innocuous reason than the first. Every muscle in Ben’s body is tensed. He wonders how well the arms of the chair he’s currently gripping were constructed.

Rose goes on. “And he has dark hair, and he’s tall.”

Rey scoffs unconvincingly. “Not my type at all.”

Rose crosses her arms. “You sure about that? Because every guy you’ve dated since I’ve known you has had dark brown-to-black hair and has been over six feet tall, so...”

“Oookay!” Rey cuts her off. “The next time I choose a chief of staff it’s not going to be someone I went to college with, I can tell you that much for sure.”

“So I’ll tell Paige to give him your number?”

“Why would _he_ get _my_ number if _I’m_ the one who needs to ask out a date? This seems like a sexist enterprise.”

“Hmm,” Rose pretends to think hard. “Maybe because I know you well enough to know that if I gave you his number you would conveniently delete the email, plus the text I sent it in to be safe, and also throw away the piece of paper I wrote it down on.”

Rey gasps in pretend outrage. “I would _obviously_ recycle it, how dare!”

“Rey. For once in your life. Put on some makeup and a pretty dress and go to a party with a tall, handsome doctor and let yourself have some _fun.”_

“That’s not at all my idea of fun.”

“I know exactly what your idea of fun is, and it involves a couch, PJs, a tub of ice cream, and some trashy reality TV show, and _please,_ Rey, I’m begging you as your friend to go on a date. Or do you want me to remind you how long it’s been since you got lai—”

 _“Rose!”_ Rey hisses, blushing. “We’re at _work!”_

“Yeah,” Rose shrugs, “alone in your office with the door closed.”

“Solo is literally _right there.”_ Rey gestures, face red as her scarlet blouse.

“Oh.” Rose glances over her shoulder. “Hey, Ben.”

“Hey.” Ben can’t say for sure the current shade of his cheeks, but he would guess it’s closer to Rey’s flush than his usual pallor.

Rey stands up and points to the door. “Get out.”

Rose’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow, rude. I can’t believe you would say that to Ben.”

“I’m saying it to _you._ Go do some work. The people are waiting.”

“So I can have Paige give her coworker your number, right?”

“No.”

Rose gathers up her phone and papers and stands to leave. “What I’m hearing is that you’ll think about it.”

“Go.”

Rose walks to the door and pauses with her hand on the knob. “I’ll take that as a strong maybe leaning yes.”

“Do you actually do any work here? Have you just been pretending this whole time?”

Rose opens the door. “I’m sure I can come up with something.” She leaves with what Ben could have mistaken for a wink in his direction. She must’ve had something in her eye.

“Sorry about that,” Rey tells him, looking down and scratching her thumbnail on the edge of her desk.

“Not a problem, ma’am.” He gets up. “I’ll go pull the car around for your ten o’clock.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t meet his eyes as he goes to the door.

He pauses in the doorway and turns around, clearing his throat. “For the record, it doesn’t matter to me, if you go with a date. I mean, I can protect you either way. Whether you take a date or not. Whatever you want. It’s my job.”

She looks up at him with an expression he can’t decipher. “Oh. Okay. That’s good to know. Thank you, Solo.”

He clears his throat. “You’re welcome.”

“Great.” She wrings her hands on the desk in front of her. “So...”

He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll pull the car around.”

“Good. That sounds good.”

“Okay. Good.”

It’s good. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Ben leaves the suite of offices and presses the button for the elevator to the garage with slightly more force than necessary.

When he pulls the car around and goes back upstairs to escort her down, he stands slightly behind her in the elevator, as is his habit. She doesn’t talk to him, though, which is slightly unusual. She busies herself on her phone. Maybe she agreed to Rose giving her the doctor’s number, after all. Maybe she’s texting him right now.

It’s fine.

* * *

On Friday, Rey wears a blouse that’s patterned with apples. The print is pretty small and you have to look closely to tell. A casual observer would just think she’s wearing a cream-colored blouse with reddish dots. But Ben knows better. He knows they’re apples, and he knows some of them have little green leaves attached, and he knows she wore it to make the third-grader who wrote that essay happy. He also knows that she’s going to her later meeting in her apple-patterned blouse, because she cares more about the regard of the eight-year-old she’s going to meet in the morning than the city manager she’s going to meet in the afternoon.

It’s very strange, being in love. It hurts his heart.

She walks around the gym, where they have tables set up for the science fair, and she stops at each display and exclaims over it and reads the whole thing and asks informed questions, and the students swell practically to bursting with pride at this attention from the _mayor._ Some of them call her “Mrs. Mayor,” which actually makes Ben hope that the doctor’s last name is Mayor, because it’s the sweetest fucking thing he’s ever heard in his life.

“You don’t seem old enough to be the mayor,” one particularly outspoken student accuses.

“Oh yeah?” Rey grins. “How old do you think a mayor has to be?”

The little boy thinks for a minute. “At least a hundred.”

“I’ll tell you a secret.” Rey leans in, and so does Ben, to hear the secret from her mouth. “I’m _two_ hundred.”

 _“What!?”_ the boy screeches delightedly. “That’s _impossible.”_

“I didn’t know girls could be mayor,” a skeptical girl with braided pigtails cuts in.

“Of course they can!” Rey exclaims. “Girls can be anything they want.”

A teacher steers her to the next table and Ben follows somewhat reluctantly. He would’ve rather listened to her tell that little girl about everything women can do. She would be a wonderful teacher. She would be a wonderful lots of things; that’s the problem. There’s only one of her in the world, and she’s already pulled in a hundred directions, and at least he gets to help a little.

There’s an award ceremony for the essay contest winner. She has a gap between her two front teeth and seems reluctant to smile with her mouth open until Rey crouches down to talk to her in the noisy multi-purpose room and she sees the apples.

Ben’s never seen a smile so wide as that girl’s, unless it’s Rey’s as she talks to her.

Maybe one day he’ll remember to Google _can your heart actually skip a beat,_ but in the meantime he’ll assume that it can.

* * *

He arrives at her apartment building at seven on Saturday evening to pick her up for the gala. She’s usually prompt to come downstairs, but this time she’s twenty minutes late. She texts him twice, apologetic.

 _It’s fine,_ he texts back. _No rush._

He stands on the curb and checks the news and the weather forecast and thinks ahead to next week, and how visibility will be bad for her ribbon-cutting on Tuesday if it’s going to be sunny, because he’ll be looking into the sun, and maybe he should call the agency to recommend a supplementary agent, and...

His first glance up at the woman who emerges from her building is quick. The second is long and breathless. Because it’s not just a woman, it’s _her,_ in a navy sequined cocktail dress with her hair up in some sort of twisted perch on her head with wisps escaping to frame her face, and a skirt that ends just above her knees that he _doesn’t_ look, he swears he doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop his brain from prompting him how everlastingly her legs seem to go on and how well they would wrap around him. The only thing that stops his brain from shutting down completely is how high the neckline is; it skims her collarbones in a straight line at the base of her graceful neck.

She pauses on the top step outside the door, holding her clutch in both hands in front of her. “So? Do I look okay?”

He tries to swallow but no saliva arrives to coat his throat. “Yes. Fine. You look fine. Good,” he croaks.

She smiles shyly (since when is Rey _shy?)_ and walks down the steps to meet him on the sidewalk. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

He resists the urge to loosen his tie, which seems more restrictive than strictly necessary, given how hard it is to breathe in her presence. He opens the door for her. “Thank y—”

As she climbs in, he sees the part of her dress that he hadn’t before. The back. Or rather, _her_ back, because the dress is backless. Whatever he might’ve been saying trails off in an indecipherable mumble, and he shuts the door as soon as she’s safely in. He needs the whole length of his walk around the car to the driver’s side to fill his lungs with air.

He can do this. The fact that he’s going to be standing behind her for most of the night makes no difference whatsoever.

He drives a few minutes in silence before clearing his throat. “Are you meeting your date there, ma’am?” He resists the temptation to glance back at her in the rearview mirror.

“Eventually you’re going to stop calling me ma’am, Solo.”

He grips the steering wheel. “It’s force of habit. I want to be respectful.”

“Do you think it’s disrespectful when I call you Solo?” She sounds genuinely concerned.

“No, ma’am. I mean, no. You can call me whatever you want.”

“Just like you can call me Rey.”

“It’s against protocol.”

“But I prefer it when you do.” Her voice is soft and quiet.

“Are you meeting your date there, Rey?” This time he can’t help stealing a look at her.

She smiles. “No, Solo. I’m not going with a date.”

“The doctor wasn’t free?”

“He couldn’t make it. And besides, I assumed that you’d want to do a thorough background check.”

“If you have his full name and date of birth, I can get right on that.”

“Solo. I was kidding.”

He clicks his turn signal on. “Oh. But in case you ever do want a background check done, just let me know, I know an NSA analyst.”

“How much are you paid, Solo?”

“It varies, ma’am. I mean, Rey. I earn a fair amount in overtime.”

“You’re worth more.”

His eyes flick to her. “But you don’t know how much I earn.”

“I know. But whatever it is, you’re worth more.”

He does have to loosen his tie after all.

* * *

Her back is a security risk. That is, her back puts her at risk because of how insistently it threatens to distract him. It’s only his undying devotion to her safety that makes him tear his eyes away from her bare skin and its jutting shoulder blades and its rippling muscles.

If she would rather be at home on the couch in her PJs, she doesn’t show it. She glows, and she flits and laughs and charms and gives every indication that striking up conversations with strangers is what she was born for. She should’ve been an ambassador. She should’ve been Secretary-General of the UN. She still could be.

She has that politician’s knack of making every person she meets feel like her entire attention and interest is focused only on them; that her greatest pleasure this evening is the opportunity to speak to _them_ in particular. At some events, that comes naturally, he can tell. It doesn’t tonight. Because her smile starts to falter, and she ducks out to the deserted hall around the corner from the bathroom to collapse for a minute on a velvet tufted bench.

He takes his position by the corner as she groans and toes one of her heels off to rub her foot.

“Remind me to tell Rose our friendship is over,” she grumbles.

“Yes, ma’— Yes. Will do.”

“I could be at home right now. And so could you.” She winces slightly. “I mean, at your home.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You should,” she grunts. “D’you have any pets?”

“No.”

“Not even a goldfish?”

He smiles accidentally. “Why a goldfish?”

She shrugs. “I dunno. They seem like they do fine with neglect. It’s not like you could have a dog, with the hours I make you work.”

“I don’t mind,” he repeats, checking the still-empty hall.

She slides the other heel off and slumps further into a slouch that does nothing to minimize the curve of her naked back. “You should. You shouldn’t have to give up your Saturday night to tag along with me and my non-existent date.”

“Rey.”

She looks up at him. Really _looks,_ not just one of her automatic glances.

“I don’t mind.”

“Really?” she asks quietly.

“I can’t think of a single place I would rather be.”

“Besides this dusty corner of the concert hall stuck with me feeling sorry for myself?”

“You’re allowed to feel sorry for yourself.”

She looks like she might believe him for a second, but then she shakes her head. “Nope. I get to come eat this fancy food and listen to music made by artists at the peak of their craft—feeling sorry for myself isn’t on the agenda for tonight.”

“You’re allowed to be tired.”

“Okay.” She slumps. “I’ll take it.”

He checks the hallway again. She puts her heels back on and stands up. She straightens her back and smooths her sequins.

“Back into the fray, then, Solo.”

“Okay.”

* * *

She doesn’t fall asleep in the car on the way home. She looks out the window so vacantly that he can’t tell from his brief glances in the rearview mirror whether her eyes are seeing her city or if they just happen to be open.

“Solo?” she asks him at a red light. The intersection is deserted at this hour.

“Yes, ma’— Rey?”

She nibbles on her thumbnail. He watches in the mirror, heedless of the light that bathes him in red. “Do you ever think about what could’ve been? If things were different?”

“I guess so.”

“You could’ve had a dog.” She looks up at his eyes in the mirror.

“I don’t want a dog.”

“Or at least a goldfish. When’s your birthday, anyway, Solo? I’m going to get you a goldfish. You should have that much.”

The light turns green, and his foot shifts from the brake. “November.”

He can hear the tired smile in her voice. “The whole month? I’ll have to get you thirty goldfish, one for every day.”

“November 28th.”

“Good,” she murmurs. “I wanna give you a goldfish.”

 _I want to give you everything, wrap up the whole world in a gift box tied with a red bow and leave it on your office chair for you._ “You don’t have to.”

Her eye roll makes in into her voice. “I know I don’t _have_ to. No one _has_ to buy someone a goldfish. That’s a mark of exceptionally high esteem, I’ll have you know.”

He can’t keep from grinning. “I’m honored.”

“Mmm, well, you should be. But we’re still not friends. Don’t go getting any wrong ideas.”

“You hold me in exceptionally high esteem, but we’re definitely not friends,” he deadpans. “Got it.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t, Rey.”

* * *

She lets him walk her the ten feet to the entrance of her building, hanging onto his arm because her feet hurt. She stops under the light above the door and looks up at him, and if he were the doctor, that’s when he would’ve gently taken the very tip of her chin between his thumb and pointer finger and slowly tipped her face up to meet his and softly kissed her, with lips barely brushing. Just a quiet promise of another night and another kiss and some future _more._

But he’s not the doctor. So he pulls the door open for her and they don’t even say goodnight, she’s too busy bending down to take her shoes off with an almighty moan and he’s too busy training his eyes on the wall of mailboxes or the ceiling of the entryway or anything besides her, barefoot and bare-backed and moaning.

He lets the door fall closed and practically jogs back to the car.

Between her back and the sea of people, he hadn’t relaxed all night. His senses are heightened when he’s around her. And also when he’s not around her, if his shower has anything to say about it. Because when he closes his eyes under the spray of water that night, he can still smell her perfume, and he can still see the mole just next to her spine: the one that’s begging to be kissed. But not by him.

It’s probably too late to go to medical school.


	3. Chapter 3

“I think we should talk about growing her security team,” Rose tells him one afternoon in her office.

“I agree,” Ben immediately replies. “She should have three agents at minimum whenever she’s in public. I can check with the agency, start vetting who they have available, and—”

“No, Ben.” Rose rests her elbows on her desk. “I mean breaking up the schedule so you’re not on all the shifts. So it’s not just you.”

An icy tingle of fear snakes its way up his spine. “Why? Is my performance unsatisfactory? Has she said something?”

Rose shakes her head. “Of course not. But you’ve been working twelve-hour days more often than not this past month, six or seven days a week. It’s not sustainable.”

_“She_ works twelve-hour days.”

“I know. But there’s only one of her. That doesn’t mean _you_ have to.”

He wipes his palms on his pants, trying to keep his voice even. “I strongly prefer to.”

Rose’s smile is kind, and maybe too knowing. “We all care about keeping her safe, Ben.”

“With all due respect, that’s not your job. It’s mine.”

Rose sighs and leans back in her chair. “I’ve done the research. Active protection detail performance starts to decline after about six hours. It doesn’t matter so much when she’s in meetings most of the day and you can relax somewhat, but on the days when she’s out and about, you can’t tell me your focus and response time are the same at the end of the evening as first thing in the morning.”

“They are.”

“Ben.” She leans forward again. “I promise, I’m not trying to step on your toes. This isn’t about you. I couldn’t have asked for a better agent for her. But we need to be realistic about your limitations in the long term.”

He sighs. “Have you talked to her about this?”

“Not yet. I wanted to discuss it with you first. To make sure you’re in the loop. I’d hoped you might help manage any pushback we get from her, but given the circumstances...”

“What if I refuse?”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “I set your hours with the agency.”

“I know. But if I’m scheduled from nine to five, there’s nothing you can do to stop me from staying on for the evening shift.”

“Even if you’re not being paid for it. And there’s another agent taking that shift.”

“Yes.”

Rose rubs her temples. “You crazy kids sure don’t make it easy on me.”

Ben frowns. “Pardon?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. I won’t say anything to her yet. But I need you to do some serious thinking about what’s best for both of you.”

“The best thing is for me to protect her.”

“Just think about it, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s all.”

He stands to leave and moves toward the door.

“Ben?”

He turns back.

“I know you care about her too much to let your ego get in the way. _Really_ think about it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to call me Rose.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

He does think about it. He thinks about it through Rey’s last meeting of the day, about the increasing average hold time for the city’s 311 call line, which she gives the same degree of attention and consideration as she did the emergency relocation of a flooded women’s shelter that morning. The same degree of attention and consideration that she gives everything. _We’re more alike than you think,_ he’d like to tell her. _I know you’re the mayor and I’m just a bodyguard, but the way that you care about your work—that’s the way that I care about you. With everything I have._

He eliminates his allotted half-hour of news reading from his schedule that night and goes to bed early. If Rose is right and his reflexes might suffer from long hours, it’s more important that he get plenty of sleep than keep up with the news. Because if Rey ever happened to bring up current events with him, he would rather sound uninformed than fail to get between her and an assailant in time. He makes a mental note to start doing a reaction time test at the start and end of each shift and recording the difference.

The only problem with going to bed early is that his body isn’t ready to sleep. He has it so well trained that he won’t be sleepy until his usual bedtime, so he lies in the dark and listens to the distant _whoosh_ of wee-hour traffic and thinks.

He considers what it would be like to hand her care over to another agent partway through the day. He could go home. Work out. He could run outside, not just on the treadmill in the dingy, cramped gym in his apartment building’s basement. He could learn to cook things that aren’t chicken breasts, potatoes, and broccoli. He could get a dog, like she wanted.

He would have plenty of time to worry about her.

He pictures some other agent driving her to evening events, helping her out of the car. Monitoring crowds. Discerning threats in handshakes. Driving her home while she dozed in the backseat. He’s seized by an irrational jealousy that he can’t shake. Those are _his_ jobs. It’s _his_ place to take care of her. No one else could do it so well, and what if something happened to her while he was off duty? How could he ever live with himself afterward?

He rolls over and tries to predict what she would want. If Rose broached the idea, what would Rey say? She would probably be all for it. Because she hates the idea of any of her staff being overworked for her benefit, and he’s not technically her staff, but he’s still... there. Hovering at the edges of her life.

Running outside doesn’t hold any particular charm for him. Nor does cooking, or dog ownership, or any of the other things he could do with a few extra hours in every day. Because she’s his job, but also his hobby. If he had the choice between going home to his white-walled apartment and spending time with her, there’s absolutely no question. Whether or not he gets paid for it, there’s nothing he’d rather do than be with her: sitting in the corner, or two steps behind, or wherever he least interferes with her.

The only reason he’d like to spend evenings in an apartment is if it were with her. And that doesn’t even make his list of impossible dreams.

* * *

Finn saves up the correspondence he knows she’ll want to answer personally, and once a month she makes an evening of it. She always kicks off her shoes, orders dinner, and gets out her favorite pen. The first time Ben had heard reference to her favorite pen, he’d assumed it would be some special, expensive utensil, maybe engraved with her monogram or something. It isn’t. It’s a fifty-cent Bic, and Ben has never quite been able to figure out why it’s her favorite, except that she’s _her,_ and when she likes something she likes it, and that’s that. Finn supplies her with a pile of notecards and letters, notes, and printed-out emails paired with pre-addressed envelopes so a secretary can stuff and mail them in the morning.

She sets up in the conference room, so she can spread out on the table, and anyone else who’s working late is under strict orders from Rose not to poke their heads in and distract her, since it takes her long enough to begin with.

“They’re _notecards,_ Rey,” Rose reminds her this particular afternoon. “For _notes._ Two sentences, max.”

“What’s the point of having all this white space if I’m only going to write two sentences? And that feels rude. Who would want to get a two-sentence note?”

“It’s a handwritten note from the mayor; people will be thrilled by even an indecipherable scribble.”

“If I lose reelection, it’s going to be because of you and your draconian note-length rules,” Rey pretends to pout.

“Ben, if she spills over onto the back of any of the notecards again, you’re fired.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, because that’s his line in this monthly skit of theirs that never fails to make him smile behind his hand.

“How is he going to stop me?” Rey demands.

“Oh, I’m not counting on _him_ to stop you. I’m counting on _you_ to restrain yourself, knowing that Ben’s job is at stake.”

“This is blackmail,” Rey sulks. “You’re blackmailing the mayor.”

“Mm hmm,” Rose smirks, “what are you gonna do about it?”

“Never in my entire life have I witnessed such a profound betrayal of everything—”

“Feel free to be as betrayed as you want. As long as you do it in your apartment after Ben drops you off not a minute later than eight. I’m having the custodial staff turn the office lights off at seven thirty.”

“Think how much longer it will take me to cover all empty white space on these notecards with the lights off.”

“I swear you’d live here if I didn’t make you go home at night.”

“Who do you think I should talk to about getting a pull-out couch in my office?”

“Talk to your new chief of staff after I’ve resigned to move to Hawaii to preserve the remaining hair that I haven’t pulled out in this job.”

“What would I do without you?”

“You’d write long-ass notes, that’s for sure. What do you want for dinner? I’ll ask Kaydel to place the other before she leaves.”

“I dunno. Solo, what do you want?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“You’re so polite.” Rey turns to Rose. “He’s so polite. What have I ever done to deserve such a polite, courteous bodyguard?”

Rose groans. “She’s punchy this evening,” she warns Ben. “I apologize in advance for the talkativeness level you’re about to be subjected to.”

“I don’t mind.” He _really_ doesn’t.

“Unless I hear otherwise in the next five seconds, I’m getting you eggplant parm. Going once...twice...”

“Wait no, I want lasagna.”

“Great. I’ll be in my office. _You’ll_ be writing short notes and thinking about how considerate of you it would be to let Ben get home before midnight.”

Rose disappears with a parting warning glare, and they’re left alone: just the two of them and the conference room table and several orderly piles of paper, notecards, and envelopes.

She goes to roll up her sleeves, except they’re already rolled up; they have been all afternoon, but that doesn’t keep her from reaching to try to find cuffs that aren’t there and stroking her wrists absentmindedly instead while reading the first letter.

“Okay, this is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” she announces to him. “This grandmother is saying I inspired her granddaughter to read a biography of influential women that the grandmother had bought for her and hadn’t been able to get her interested in. _And_ she thanks me for replacing the fire hydrant on her block! Do you think I would be a good fire hydrant replacer if this mayor thing doesn’t work out?”

“I think you would be good at anything,” he replies gruffly.

“I’m not going to be good at answering this letter concisely. I’m concerned about my favorite pen, Solo. It only has like a fifth of its ink left.”

“Do you want me to go get you a new one?”

She shakes her head vehemently. “First of all, that’s not your job. Second of all, it’s my _favorite pen._ You can’t _replace_ things like that willy nilly.”

“My condolences, then,” he says with a small smile, “on your pen.”

_“That’s_ more like it!” she grins. “Finally someone gives my pen the deference it deserves.”

“Do you need anything else?”

“Is that code for _write the note or Rose will get mad?_ Don’t worry, I’m writing, I’m writing.”

She is, with one bare foot tucked up on the chair under her other knee. She’s adopted the habit of sitting up straight when she writes around other people, but when she’s alone or with just him, she hunches, with her left hand splayed out wide as if to anchor a wind-blown map.

She’s made it successfully through about six of the notes by the time her dinner arrives forty-five minutes later. Ben isn’t entirely sure from his vantage point by the wall, but he thinks all of them so far have spilled over onto the back of the notecard.

She tucks into her lasagna and garlic bread with gusto. She takes big bites so she can write undisturbed while she chews, and probably not more than a couple smudges of tomato sauce make it onto notecards.

She finishes a note and rips off a piece of bread with her teeth. She asks while she’s chewing, “How come you’re not on your phone or something, Solo? Don’t you get bored?”

“No,” he answers sincerely.

“What, just watching me for hours is entertainment enough?” she grins.

He probably shouldn’t answer _this_ one honestly.

She saves him from having to answer at all. “You could be on your phone now. It’s not like I’m in danger in this empty office.”

“You never know. I need to stay alert.”

She chuckles before realizing he’s not joking. “Do you really think someone’s going to get past security and burst into the conference room?”

“I think the probability is low but non-zero.”

“Is that why you always try to be by the door when you can?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not calling me what we agreed on.”

“We agreed that I wouldn’t call you ma’am.”

Her eyes bore into his. “Call me Rey.”

“Yes, Rey.”

It’s one of those moments that he could _almost_ believe isn’t just his imagination. She’s looking at him with a quiet intensity that has no more smile, no more jokes. She’s looking at him like he’s more than her nigh-invisible shadow, because sometimes she really sees him. And this is one of those moments.

He looks away first.

He can’t think when she’s looking at him, and he can’t do his job if he can’t think.

She returns to her notecards, he can tell out of the corner of his eye. She writes the next several in silence, stopping only occasionally to take a bite. She turns one sideways to squeeze in one more line on the back that’s all the way covered.

“You’re going to be in trouble with Rose,” she observes, adding the note and its envelope to the completed stack. “I’m writing slightly more than two sentences.”

“Slightly?” he smiles.

“Definitely no more than nine,” she smirks. She looks down at the stack of notes she has yet to write: still a daunting pile. “I’ll be later than seven thirty for sure. I’m sorry for keeping you.”

“It’s fine, Rey.”

“It’s _not_ fine. You shouldn’t have to work these long hours just because I am.”

Ben clears his throat. “So Rose has already talked to you?” So much for letting him think about it. The betrayal stings.

“Talked to me about what?”

“Oh. Never mind.”

She crosses her arms. “Yeah, you can’t just say that and then say ‘never mind.’ Tell me what.”

Ben shifts in his chair. “Rose should be the one to tell you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to start writing a dozen sentences, minimum. We’ll be here all night.”

“I don’t mind.”

She scoffs, feigning annoyance. “You really don’t, do you? Then how about...” She looks around for a suitable punishment, and her eyes alight on the last few bites of lasagna. “If you don’t tell me, you have to finish this pasta.”

“I don’t eat on duty.”

“I know. So I guess you’re going to tell me.”

He surprises both of them—but especially her—when he stands up suddenly and walks over to the table where she sits. He can see it in her eyes, wide and questioning. She looks up at him as he looms over her. He slowly pulls out the chair beside her and sits. He drags the container of lasagna toward him, along with the fork and knife that she’s been using. He picks up the utensils and cuts a piece. She watches with shining eyes and bated breath, and he knows the same question hangs in both of their minds: is he really going to do it? He stabs the fork through the layers and raises it to his mouth.

When his lips close around the bite, an audible breath escapes her, with the faintest tinge of a hum or a moan. He chews and swallows deliberately, and then he looks at her and smiles triumphantly, but she’s not smiling.

She’s closer than he realized. Close enough to touch. Close enough for him to see how wide and dark her eyes are, and are her eyes always this dark? Does her heartbeat always throb visibly in the delicate crevice at the base of her throat? Are her lips always ever-so-slightly parted, and does she always draw in a sharp little intake of breath, like she’d forgotten how to breathe for a second?

His hand rests on the table, inches from hers. She doesn’t look down as she reaches out to him, and two of her fingertips tuck under the cuff of his shirt as she rests her warm, dry palm on the back of his hand. He doesn’t move a muscle for fear that he’ll wake up alone in bed.

She murmurs, “What did Rose tell you?”

He swallows. “I ate the lasagna. So I don’t have to say.”

“You don’t have to.” She bites her bottom lip. “But I’m asking you to.”

Her hand is still resting on his, and anything she asked him right now, he would tell her. “She wants to hire more agents. Split up the shifts, so I don’t work as much.”

“Oh.” She pulls her hand away, and oxygen comes flooding back into the room. “Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know. She asked me to think about it.”

“What do you think?” she asks quietly.

“I want to keep you safe.”

She smiles gently. “You do.”

“I want you to be safe all the time. Even if someone else can do it better than me.”

She frowns. “No one could do it better than you.”

He swallows. “Are you sure?”

“I feel so safe with you, Ben.”

“Okay.” His lungs fill sharply. “Okay.” He retreats, pushing back his chair to give her space. He goes back to his chair by the door, and she tucks her ankle farther under her thigh, and they sit in silence as her favorite pen gradually gets closer to running out of ink and he tries not to watch her.

She’s silent on the drive home, and when he comes around the car to help her out, she’s already standing on the sidewalk.

It’s almost shy, the way her eyes duck to his tie when she mumbles, “Good night.”

She’s up the stairs and through the door before he can respond. He stands there for a minute, dazed, his mind stumbling over the memory of her hand on his.

It isn’t until he’s in bed, trying vainly to fall asleep, that he remembers the other part. He thinks he can be forgiven for his failure to notice it at the time, given her proximity.

The part where she called him _Ben._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic is such an interesting experience for me because it’s first one in a long time where I have an endgame but really no conception of what comes in the middle, besides *pining.* So basically at any time I can be no more than two chapters from the end, no matter how many chapters I write. All that to say I don’t actually know how long it’ll be, but I’ll keep you posted with developments. Thanks a bunch for reading! 😊
> 
> Feel free to poke your head in on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2) for periodic updates!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was horrified to realize that I forgot to share THE most [adorable art](https://twitter.com/AlhenaCrimson/status/1333164325024968708) that [@AlhenaCrimson](https://twitter.com/AlhenaCrimson) made to illustrate Rey in her apple-patterned blouse with the essay contest winner, plus bonus flustered Ben!
> 
> The sweet and darling [Emily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashPile11/pseuds/TrashPile11) made this gorgeous [moodboard](https://twitter.com/trashpile11/status/1338485221306593282). 💛

“Okay,” Rose announces one July afternoon as she comes into Rey’s office. “I’m going on vacation the first week of August.”

“Good!” Rey exclaims. “You deserve it! You work too hard.” She’s wearing a light, floaty white blouse that has rendered thinking especially difficult for Ben all day.

“True,” Rose sighs dramatically, throwing herself into a chair and resting the back of her hand on her forehead as she tosses her head. “But seriously. Council will be in recess starting next week, and you only have something like ten public engagements on the book for the whole month of August. I’ll get Finn up to speed on everything; he’ll be acting when I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?” Rey asks, propping her elbows on her desk.

“Miami,” Rose grins. “I’m going to sit on a beach for a week with a drink in my hand and not think about the latest developments in the feud between the economic development commission and the business district board.”

Rey groans. “What’s happened now?”

“The business district board has hot meals catered for their meetings and the EDC just gets sandwiches, and one of the EDC members found out.”

“And...”

“Oh no, that’s it. That’s the whole issue. And now they’re refusing to work together on organizing Small Business Day in October.”

Rey sighs. “Maybe I can meet with them—”

“Absolutely not,” Rose cuts her off. “They don’t get to be coddled by the mayor when they throw a tantrum. We can’t reinforce that kind of behavior.”

“You could’ve been a dog trainer,” Rey grins.

“It’s not too late,” Rose groans. “Hey, come do it with me. We can go into business together.”

“We did, remember? Local politics.”

“Nah,” Rose scoffs playfully. “Who needs ‘em? Let’s start R&R Canine Coaching.”

“You think someone might notice if there’s no mayor?” Rey grins.

Rose shrugs. “Make Ben the mayor on your way out. He’s tall.”

“First of all,” Rey laughs, “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. Secondly, is height the only necessary qualification?”

 _“And_ he’s a man.” Rose tosses a grin over her shoulder to Ben as Rey chortles. “Anyway, this brings me to the other reason I came in here: to tell you that _you’re_ going on vacation the third week of August.”

“What? No. I can’t. I have way too much to do.”

“Not the third week of August you don’t. Your schedule is entirely clear.”

Rey frowns. “Did you move my meetings around without telling me?”

“Babe, I can’t even begin to describe how often I move your meetings around and you’re none the wiser.”

Ben sits by the door and smiles and listens to their banter, and he sees in them the college roommates who sat in their crappy apartment making plans to be exactly where they are now and he could burst with pride at being allowed to sit in the front row to watch these two women do their jobs.

“But what if there’s an emergency,” Rey is protesting, “and I’m not here?”

“You’ll be less than three hours away, you can be back here in no time.”

“I don’t like the beach.”

“You don’t _go_ to the beach,” Rose corrects. “There’s a difference.”

“What would I do for a week, anyway?”

“Swim. Sleep. Run. Have a spa day. Go to the movies. Dip Boardwalk fries in soft serve. Hook up with a hot stranger. Dig a hole for the waves to fill and put your feet in it. Read. _Not_ for work. You know, what people do on vacation.”

Rey flushes crimson. “Okay, we’re not going to get into all of that, but your experiences are not universal.”

 _“I_ don’t hook up with hot strangers on vacation. I mean, I only did the once, but then I took him home and married him.”

“Does Hux know you talk about him like a stray dog?”

Rose dismisses Rey’s concern with an airy wave of her hand. “Oh, he loves it. Find a guy who worships you, I highly recommend it.”

Rey’s eyes flicker almost imperceptibly in Ben’s direction. He looks away, wondering if she’s thinking about the doctor. He’s still never quite been able to figure out if she’s gone out with him, and the uncertainty definitely doesn’t haunt his every waking moment or anything.

“You have the Middle Eastern Liaison in fifteen minutes,” Rose announces, standing to leave. “I’ll email you the details for your trip.”

“Wait, seriously, don’t book it, it’ll be a waste of time.”

“Too late, already did.” Rose blows her a kiss from the doorway. “Ben, come see me when you have a chance?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rey shuffles papers on her desk. Her face is still red, and Ben can’t tell if she’s truly annoyed or if there’s some other reason.

“You should go,” he says quietly, and she looks up sharply. “On the trip. You work too hard.”

“I don’t know,” she says, wiping her hair back from her forehead tiredly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” His smile is barely a smile: just the smallest upturn of lips. But she sees it, he can tell, because she smiles back. A new sliver of joy in the overflowing pie she’s made of his life. “If there’s nothing you need, I’m going to go see Rose.”

“Okay. I don’t need you for this meeting. Go get a snack, Solo.”

“I don’t eat on duty.”

 _We both know that’s not true,_ she could say. _Because you ate a bite of my lasagna and I put my hand on yours and you jerked off three times that night, thinking about me. Once in the shower, and again at one a.m. when you realized that I called you Ben, and again a little after four when you still couldn’t sleep for remembering my fingertips on your wrist and imagining my body in your bed._ Well, actually, she couldn’t say that part, because she doesn’t know it. He does, though.

He’s _acutely_ aware.

She doesn’t say any of that. She just says, “Take a walk, then. You need your vitamin D.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, which has evolved for them into his way of saying _I’m not going to do what you just told me because I’ve judged that it would impede my ability to keep you safe, but thank you anyway for trying._

She grins and rolls her eyes, and he leaves her sunshine to go see Rose.

He pokes his head in the open door of her office. “Ben, come in,” she says, hanging up the phone and looking harried.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, sitting in the chair she gestures to.

“I just got off the phone with the agency; they can’t spare anyone to cover that week. Too many agents have already put in for vacation.”

Ben is confused. “What week, ma’am?”

Rose sighs. “I wanted to give you the week off when Rey’s away. I don’t want you to burn out, Ben.”

“I’m not going to burn out.”

She rubs her temples. “I really _did_ want to give you the week off,” she says, like he might not have believed her the first time. “I would say she can go without protection, but... you know.”

He does know. He and Rose both do: the extent of the depravity of the threats and violent and sexual fantasies they try to keep from Rey. She can’t escape to the beach alone anymore, because her face is no longer her own. It belongs to articles and profiles and the frenzy of social media that’s made her more recognizable than one can safely be while also a young, beautiful, controversial woman.

“Of course I’ll go.” He’s slightly hurt that Rose even considered anything else, after they’d finally put the idea of splitting shifts to bed.

“You need to take a break eventually, Ben. I promise, I’ll make sure it happens.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“She’s going to push back on having protection on vacation. She’ll try to use it as a reason not to go. The expense of your hotel room to the city and all that.”

He nods. “I know.”

“She _needs_ a break. We can’t let her get out of it.”

“I know.”

“Okay, that’s settled, then.”

Neither of them relents in the four weeks that follow, despite Rey’s protests. The evening before Ben and Rey are set to leave, Rose goes over to Rey’s apartment to pack for her, and the next morning, Ben helps Rose confiscate Rey’s work phone and laptop.

“You’re going to relax and you’re going to like it,” Rose huffs, manhandling the suitcase in the trunk of the car outside Rey’s apartment before Ben can get there.

“I’m _not_ going to relax,” Rey complains, “I’ll just be thinking about everything I could be getting done if _someone”_ —she glares at Ben— “hadn’t stolen my laptop.” He placidly opens the rear passenger door for her.

Rose nods soothingly. “Yep, you’re going to be stressing out about that for the first day or two. But _then_ you’re going to relax.”

“Sounds fake,” Rey sulks.

“I packed sunscreen and flip flops in your smaller bag so you can go to the beach as soon as you get there if you don’t want to unpack first.”

“I’m not even going to unpack. I’ll steal the keys from Solo at the first gas station and turn around.”

“Rey, sweetie,” Rose says, taking her friend’s face in her hands. “You can’t change the world in a week. It’ll still be waiting when you get back.”

“Promise?” Rey asks quietly, with a tiny quiver of her chin.

Rose leaves a smacking kiss on her forehead. “Promise. Now go.”

She’s quiet on the drive. She spends most of it staring pensively out the window. Ben doesn’t talk, just glances back at her in the mirror occasionally. The longer she doesn’t talk, the more guilty he feels about the part he played in forcing her to come.

She doesn’t even pretend to try to steal the keys when he stops for gas, which is mildly concerning. She buys Bugles and a Fanta, though, which Ben takes as a hopeful sign.

“I’m going to stay in this afternoon,” she tells him when they’re a half an hour from their destination.

“Okay.” He swallows hesitantly. “Is everything all right?”

“I have a headache.”

“There’s a Rite Aid coming up, we can stop—”

“No, let’s just get there.”

“Yes, ma’— Rey. It’ll be about thirty minutes.”

“Fine.”

They arrive without incident, and she sits on a couch in the lobby as he checks them in distractedly, looking around to make sure she’s safe.

The receptionist told him some things about the rooms, he’s almost certain, and one of them was probably that they were adjoining. But it’s not until Ben opens Rey’s door and does a quick sweep of the room that it truly hits him: the fact that the only thing separating the two of them for a week’s worth of nights will be a door in the wall. Just an ordinary, everyday door, with a latch and everything. And on the other side— _her._

He clears his throat. “Here, I’ll draw the curtains. There’s cold water in the fridge. Is there anything I can do for you?”

She sits down heavily on the bed. “No, thanks, I just want to nap. You can do whatever you want, I’ll text you when I wake up.”

He hovers for a moment longer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nods and makes a feeble attempt at a smile, which does little to reassure him, but there’s nothing he can do but retreat to the hall and close her door softly behind him.

He lets himself into his own room, which is the mirror image of hers. If he weren’t worrying about her, he would probably appreciate the view of the ocean from the balcony, but as it is, he unpacks quickly and looks up the nearest pharmacy on his phone. He doesn’t take the time to change before he goes out. He’ll look ridiculous in a suit in a beach town in August, but that means less than nothing to him compared to her comfort.

The pharmacy is excessively air-conditioned and seems to exist mostly for the purpose of selling beach chairs, plastic pails, beach umbrellas, and cheap bathing suits. There’s half an aisle of sunscreen, and the other half is aloe. The painkillers are something of an afterthought, tucked in the back row next to the vitamins, meal replacement shakes, and condoms. He goes down the row and buys one of each of the painkillers because he doesn’t know what kind she would want. That’s something he should know about her. But he doesn’t yet, so he brings two fistfuls of bottles to the register, stopping to grab a box of popsicles on the way. The cashier gives him a slightly suspicious look but rings up his purchases, and soon he’s getting back in the car with the most pills he’s ever carried at one time, in the hope that one of them will help take away her pain.

He drives back to the hotel with the windows down and considers how accustomed he’s gotten to loving her. It never stops hurting his heart, but now he’s grown to expect the sharp pangs. They’re an inevitable side effect of being around her. Because his heart clenches when she’s happy, or sad, or angry, or frustrated, or enthusiastic, or excited, or...

He reflects that it’s probably easier to be in love when you’re loved, too. Because then you don’t have to store up all the feeling in your chest; you can put it in kisses.

His chest is full to the brim, but he’s strong enough to take more.

The sun is dipping in the late afternoon sky when he parks and makes his way back upstairs with his haul. There’s no sound from her room, and she hasn’t texted him, so he puts the popsicles in the small freezer and familiarizes himself with the contents of the room. A modest fridge and freezer plus two stovetop burners and a minuscule kitchen sink make useful companions for the microwave and coffee maker. There’s a cupboard with two of everything: dinner plates, dessert plates, bowls, water glasses, wine glasses, and pots. The cutlery drawer has the same—a message that this room is meant for exactly two people. Certainly not more, but ideally not fewer.

Beyond the bed is a loveseat and ottoman likely meant to double as a coffee table, and then the balcony with its gauzy drapes, and then the ocean.

Ben tugs open the sliding door and lets the August heat hit his face. He looks down at the boardwalk and the beach beyond, where the lengthening shadows of the high-rises are driving a gradual exodus of beachgoers laden with chairs and bags and coolers and umbrellas. It’s not a glamorous spot: it’s no Caribbean resort, just a humble Atlantic beach virtually indistinguishable from a few dozen others. But it has the sea.

He steps out onto the balcony and slides the door shut behind him, patting his pocket to make sure he has his phone in case she texts. He leans on the railing with both hands and surveys the unimaginable wealth of water. Despite the hundreds of feet that separate him and the waves, he can clearly hear the gathering roar and insolent crash and retreating fizzle. A few lazy seagulls circle overhead, as if under obligation to complete the beach scene. The wind, if there was any earlier in the day, has died down, and the water beyond the waves gathers in ripples of blue untouched by white. He breathes in salt and exhales a smile.

This is the part where it would start to feel like a vacation, if it were a vacation. But it’s not. So he makes note of the opaque dividers that shield both ends of the balcony—good for security—and returns to the room. His collar is wilting, and he loosens his tie as he takes out his phone and checks for good takeout places nearby. The agency drilled into him in training that bodyguards aren’t supposed to be sent on errands while they’re on duty; that’s not what they’re there for. But it’s all his fault that their lines are blurred, so the least he can do is make her life a little easier. She has Rose for that at home, but she’s not at home. She’s here, on vacation, with him.

For a week.

He takes a deep breath and is scrolling unseeing through restaurants when his phone chimes a text alert.

_Can we go to the beach?_

He grins in relief and types.

_Of course, Rey._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let’s be honest, who really knows how many chapters this will be. 😊
> 
>  _Edited 1/12/21 to add:_ I’ve decided to put this fic on hold. I don’t specify where it’s set, but in my head it’s in DC (write what you know and all that), and writing even a fictional DC elected official in fictional peril is not something I want to do right now. Thanks for understanding. ❤️


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